


It's Just Fate

by lookatthesefreakinghipsters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Broken Castiel, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lucifer Possessing Dean Winchester, Minor Character Death, Time Travel, Tortured Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 13:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3489779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatthesefreakinghipsters/pseuds/lookatthesefreakinghipsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Sam never says yes to Lucifer, it leaves Lucifer with only one other choice of vessel.  When Sam takes a trip to 2014, he comes face-to-face with his brother's body, but not his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Just Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this picture](http://thequeenofirony.tumblr.com/post/9499688707)

"Oh Sammy," the body in front of Sam mocked, removing his elegant white shoe from Sam’s future version’s crushed windpipe. It favoured him with a tender smile, sending a flash of rage and blinding anger coursing through Sam. "My dear brother."

"You. Are. Not. My. Brother," Sam snarled through gritted teeth.

"No," the angel wearing his brother’s skin said, sadly, "I suppose I’m not." Plucking a white rose from the bush behind him, Lucifer lifted it to Dean’s nose and sniffed it. As he dropped his arm, the rose blackened and shriveled, the petals falling off the desiccated stem. "In fact," he continued, "I could have been you."

"Why are you possessing Dean? I thought I was your one special vessel?" Sam asked, his mind whirling at the situation, the cognitive dissonance at the sight of his brother’s body being contorted into unfamiliar movements and expressions playing havoc on his grip on reality.

"You were. You are. But you chose obstinacy. So your brother had to pay the price, as always, for dear little Sammy." 

Dean’s arm reached towards Sam, tried to recoil, but found himself unable to move. Lucifer touched his forehead gently, two of Dean’s calloused fingers brushing softly against the hairs between Sam’s brows. Sam, unable to escape, closed his eyes in anticipation.

Visions exploded in his brain, crystal-clear and in surround sound, unlike the confusing and disjoint visions he had suffered from in years before. He saw a blond-haired man, his skin filled with scabs and peeling flesh standing in front of Dean, who was on his knees in the dirt. “Your brother is never going to say yes,” the other man said.

"Good for him," Dean taunted, even as he flinched as blood from a cut next to his scalp dripped into his eye. His voice sounded gruffer and angrier than usual. "And without him, your whole ‘destroy all humans’ plan goes right to, well, Hell, doesn’t it?"

The man circled Dean, his hands clasped behind his back. A sad smile spread over his face and he said, “There are others, Dean. Sam would be my best vessel, the one that could endure my glory the longest, if not for all eternity. But it’s a bloodline, it’s not just in his blood, but also in all of your family’s. Nick here, for instance, is a distant relative of yours from the Campbell side. I believe he’s your fourth cousin, once removed, or is it twice? I can never remember.”

"So what, you’re just going to try to go through all of our family until they either reject you or you burn through them like you are with Nick?" Dean scoffed at that, "Nice try there, not too many of them are going to welcome the devil inside."

"No," Lucifer said, shaking Nick’s head. "Just you."

"How about you bite me?" Dean said, "I’d rather be dead."

"I have no doubt," Lucifer said, crouching next to Dean. "You place so little importance on your own life, Dean, but what about if I kill Sam, scatter his atoms across the universe, send his soul to the blackest, darkest pit of Hell? Trust me Dean, Alastair is not nearly as inventive as some of the demons we have on retainer in Hell."

What little colour and fight were left in Dean’s face disappeared. Lucifer continued, “If you deny me, every single person you have ever met will meet with the same fate. Bobby Singer, Jody Mills, Lisa Braeden and her son, every single person you ever saved. You gave them a few years of life on Earth and condemned them to an eternity in the Pits of Hell. Castiel, as a fallen angel, will be taken to Hell and tortured and reprogrammed until he comes to love me. He will serve me as my second-in-command. But you, Dean, you will not die. I will give you life to watch everyone you’ve ever known suffer and be tortured until they go mad and perhaps then, I will unleash them to the Earth to allow them to torture you.”

"No…" Dean managed to gasp out, the true horror of Lucifer’s threat shutting down his brain.

"Ah!" Lucifer said, "He doubts that I can do it! Perhaps a demonstration is in order?" Lucifer clapped his hands and two demons brought out Ed Zeddmore out from the surrounding darkness, bound and bloodied, and threw him in the dirt in front of Dean.

"Dean?" Ed asked, blinking owlishly at Dean, his glasses having been lost, reaching out to Dean with his rope-bound hands, almost as if to check that Dean was real. "Dean, they killed Harry, they snapped his neck and killed him!" Ed said, his voice edging on hysterics. 

"You son of a bitch!" Dean yelled at Lucifer, cracking a little on the last word.

"Oh hush, Dean. Such dramatics. Now watch," Lucifer replied, snapping his fingers. A howl of a Hellhound echoed in the distance and Dean found himself recoiling at it in fear.

"Dean? Dean, what’s happening?" Ed pleaded, confused and terrified, looking at Dean.

Dean’s green eyes met Ed’s hazel ones, guilt and horror in Dean’s eyes. Shaking his head, Dean said, “If you leave them alone, I’ll do it!”

"Well, Dean, I am planning the destruction of the world, so I can’t promise that I can leave them completely alone," Lucifer said, "But I can promise that I will not drag them to Hell and torture them. If they die in my little war, I promise they’ll make their way to Heaven. How does that sound?"

"Yes, yes, just let him go!"

A blinding light washed over Dean and Nick. In the last moments of Dean being himself, his eyes glistening, he whispered urgently to Ed, “Close your eyes!” Ed dove into the dirt, burying his head in his arms against the ground. The light grew in intensity, draining out of Nick and flowing into Dean, until Nick’s body fell lifeless on the ground and it fully entered into Dean. Sam could swear that he saw the shadows of six wings against the ground, spreading out from behind Dean’s shadow. The light started to fade, until it only remained in Dean’s eyes, then that too was gone.

Lucifer stood up, admiring his new body, examining his hands and arms, before standing up. Frost clung to Dean’s cheeks where his tears had trailed only moments before and Lucifer wiped them away with an disdainful hand. “Oh do look up, you silly man,” Lucifer said, speaking to Ed.

Ed raised his head hesitantly, then from his place on the ground, he looked up at Dean’s body. “Dean?” he asked.

"Not anymore," Lucifer said, twisting Dean’s face into a nasty smirk. "But you’re in luck, he’s bargained for your life and I won’t be killing you today."

"What are you?" Ed asked. "Some sort of demon?"

Lucifer crouched down and as he reached his fingers to touch Ed’s forehead, he said, “My name is Lucifer.” Ed disappeared the second Lucifer touched him. Snapping his fingers again, a host of demons materialized at Dean’s side. Standing up and, though he wasn’t much taller than most, he seemed to tower over them. “Come now, we have work to do.”

Sam felt himself jolted back to reality. Opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was his brother’s eyes, their vibrant green were completely empty of his brother. “You know you could have spared him,” Dean’s gruff voice mocked, “He’s still in here, screaming occasionally. Of course, he does that a lot less after what I had to do to Castiel. That angel just couldn’t leave well-enough alone.”

Sam shuddered at the memory of Cas, housed back at the camp, driven mad by Lucifer’s torture. He’d been locked in a padded room of Sam’s small cabin for his own safety, muttering to himself. Apparently the last time that he’d escaped, he’d tried to walk right into the Croat hot zone. Only one of Chuck’s visions had warned Risa of where he would be and saved him. “You said you wouldn’t torture them, you promised Dean!” Sam accused.

"Quite right," Dean’s gruff voice replied. "However, Cas left me with no other option. He kept mounting attacks on me, I had to make an example of him. Besides, he’s still mostly Cas. Just…a little damaged."

Plucking another flower, Lucifer placed it in the lapel of Sam’s jacket. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Either you or Dean will be my vessel. It’s inevitable. Just make it easier on him and say yes when you get back to 2009.” Placing two fingers on Sam’s forehead, Dean’s voice echoed to Sam, “It’s okay, Sammy. It’s just fate.”

Nausea surged through Sam as he landed back in his hotel room in 2009, not as dirty as when he had woken up in it in 2014. Pulling his cell phone off the sidetable, he dialed Dean’s number. His brother’s exhausted voice said resignedly, “Cas, I need to sleep. Go bug someone else for a few minutes.”

"Dean," Sam said, unable to keep a quaver out of his voice.

"Sammy?" Dean asked, sitting upright in his bed. Something in Sam’s voice reminded Dean of the time when Sam had started running a huge fever and had been terrified that he was dying until Dean took him to the hospital. He’d been fine, but in his fever, Sam had pleaded with his brother for help. Now, almost 20 years later, Dean’s blood froze at the same plea. "What’s wrong?"

"Uhhh," Sam said, trying to hold back his fear and horror which was warring with his relief at the sound of his brother’s, his true brother’s voice, "I know that you said that we should stay apart for now, but there’s some stuff I need to talk to you about. Can we meet?"

"Where are you?" Dean asked, balancing his phone against his shoulder as he pulled on yesterday’s jeans. "I’m going to call Cas, see if he can bring you here."

Sam told him and Dean replied with a gruff, “See you soon.” Sam sat on the edge of his bed, in the chilled air of the hotel room, and waited for Cas, and prayed that they could change their futures.


End file.
